April 18, 2013

Spring Cleaning the Deck

So, the Saturday after we got back from New York the sun was out and at the back of the house it was quite warm so I decided to clean the deck. Remember how we got the deck built last year around this time? We’ll it’s lived through a year of wear and tear and a very long and cold winter and although larch is supposed to weather and turn grey I figured this grey wasn’t all weather but rather a lot of dirt and pollution too.

As you can see the part that’s covered by the balcony and where the pots stood in the first photo are much lighter than the uncovered part and my mission was to try to get a less dramatic difference.

So I moved everything off the deck. The furniture went on the lawn but I placed the pots in the flower bed because the lawn is still so soggy and I didn’t want to make matters worse by placing heavy objects on it.

My initial thought was to bring out the power washer but then decided to Google first and see what the proper way is to care for a larch wood deck that you’re not going to treat. Turns out scrubbing the dirt away is the best. Let me tell you right away that my arms are now toned again after a winter of not seeing much activity. Hello biceps! I used a brush on a long handle and “såpa” which is a natural soap made from pine oil. It’s got great cleaning abilities, smells awesome and actually brings some oil back into the wood as you’re cleaning. Don’t know if it’s available in other countries, I’ve only ever come across it in Sweden. Look at the gunk going!

I’m not going to pretend it was a soft and easy job. It took several hours and A LOT of scrubbing but it did get clean (and I got red hot and sweaty). I also gave the furniture a once over with the same soap before putting it on the deck to dry.

And here it is in its clean state. It IS greying slightly already after a year but it IS larch and is supposed to do that and that’s why I chose it so that’s totally fine by me. But now it’s clean and see, there’s a difference between dirt grey and clean grey.

Oh, and that’s Bonus’ buddy Diesel coming over for a little peck on the cheek. Those two, I’m telling you, it’s the sweetest thing to see Bonus, our scaredy cat, have a friend. Mini on the other hand isn’t as amused.